


Leverage, Season 3, Episode 2, The Reunion Job

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Leverage
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s03e02 The Reunion Job, Meta, Nonfiction, Season/Series 03, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24549505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the episode and the rest of the series. Complete.
Kudos: 5





	Leverage, Season 3, Episode 2, The Reunion Job

Open to an Iranian, likely Muslim, man who isn’t a terrorist.

Good for you, Leverage, and still severely disappointed in you, X-Files.

This client of the week is doing stuff on his computer when men burst in. They use sci-fi looking tech on his computer before stealing part of his computer.

In the bar, CotW talks to Nate and Hardison. The Iranian government is going all 1984, and he was working on something to counteract this. He can’t even contact his family right now for fear of putting them in danger, but for all he knows, they’ve already been hurt. He can’t go to the FBI for fear of having his student visa revoked.

I’d find it neat if Nate was all, ‘Okay, that’d normally be the case, but Hardison here and another of my associates are now FBI agents. They’re going to take you to two real FBI agents. Just let them do most of the talking.’

Instead, Nate says Team Leverage will discuss it, and CotW assumes he’s being blown off. He leaves.

Luckily for him, Hardison makes it clear to Nate that Team Leverage will be doing this. Then, Eliot reveals he’s been lurking incognito nearby.

Nate claims they were always going to take the case but that he wanted Hardison to explain why it was important to take it. I’m not sure I buy this, but okay.

Eliot is amused by this, and Hardison is not happy with his future husband and father-in-law.

It seems Eliot is often a lot more cheerful this season than he was in seasons 1 and 2.

Eliot and Hardison go to a diner, and they’re health inspectors. Sophie is a customer who found a roach in her food, and Eliot refuses to get rid of the roach for her.

Meanwhile, Parker is doing spy stuff in another part of the diner. “Hardison, confiscate some pastries.”

Outside, Nate is alone in the van.

In headquarters, they discuss the BGotW, and Eliot makes Sophie’s tea for her. Then, it’s played as if she mind-gamed him into this, but I’m not sure how much I buy this. I think this is the real beginning of Eliot being the Eliot who does handiwork that Hardison could just pay someone to do on the brewery, because, Hardison said he wanted to go green. He only takes the tea away due to not quite being willing to let the others know how much he doesn’t mind doing things for them just yet.

The BotW is a rich computer guy.

Elsewhere, said BotW is expositing about how the Iranian government needs to pay him money in order to continue being 1984ish.

Carrying a bonsai tree, Eliot bumps into him, and BotW is a huge jerk.

Then, Hardison and Parker appear to clean up the mess the bonsai tree being thrown to the ground made. They get into BotW’s office, and he’s running everything on a 1980’s computer complete with floppy disks.

Hardison tries to hack it, and security is immediately alerted.

They get out, and in the bar, Eliot is weirded out by the fact you can buy anyone’s Yearbook online. Hardison is amused Eliot still believes in privacy. Team Leverage finds a cheerleader BotW is still hung up over, and Parker wants to know what DD stands for.

I’m going to assume it’s a reference to breast size, but if not, I’m just as clueless as she is. If it is, I don’t like this joke. Hopefully, no Yearbook would have a reference to a teenage girl’s breast size in it, and if one did, that would be deeply disturbing.

There is a funny moment where Eliot refuses to feel sorry for the high school-obsessed BotW, because, being bullied is no excuse for propping up dictators. “Take Hardison, he got bulled his whole high-school career. He's not a criminal.”

Sophie and Parker point out, actually, he is.

“Not a bad criminal,” Eliot counters. Fair.

Hardison isn’t happy with the assumption he was bullied, and Eliot brings up the fact Hardison has an action figure of some kind.

Yeah, but if anyone did anything to Hardison’s action figure or Bunny, Eliot would probably stop after breaking a few bones. Probably.

Nate explains how all BGotW’s passwords are high-school related, and Parker wants to know Nate’s passwords. Hardison has got her covered, and he asks if she wants to see Nate’s Netflix queue, too. Heh.

They decide to move BGotW’s high-school reunion from eight months to now.

There’s a scene of Sophie doing voices, and then, BGotW is playing hardball with an Iranian over video-chat when he gets a call about the new date for the reunion.

At the reunion, Sophie is setting things up inside. Nate and Hardison are in the van, and a flashback reveals teenage Hardison stole from Iceland to pay for his Nana’s medical bills.

Well, this explains why Sterling was going to have him extradited there.

Eliot chimes in, and there’s a flashback of quarterback him taking home ec. due to a buxom teacher. She provides the quote about people, knives, and context that he said in The Wedding Job.

Then, he knocks out an employee of BGotW’s to get inside the computer building.

At the reunion, there’s a guy in a kilt or skirt. Cool. Sophie is pretending to be a former student, and Hardison Photoshopped her to look like an awkward-looking teen in a Yearbook being displayed.

Nate shows up, and to put it diplomatically, he’s unlikely to win any awards for being best dressed. Everyone is impressed, however. In fact, he’s the life of the party, and in the van, Hardison is researching people so that Nate can pretend he knows them.

Of course, Nate is talking to Hardison with people literally all around him.

One of the passwords they give Eliot works, but it doesn’t open what he’s looking for.

Finding Sophie and BGotW, Nate’s persona is a real a-hole.

A wrench is thrown in the con when a femme fatale appears. She’s going by Nikki, and Hardison doesn’t know if she’s one of the six Nicoles, three Veronicas, or Dominique.

I know this is an alias, but it’s worth noting there are men and women both who are named Nikki/Nicky as their full name rather than it being a diminutive. On a different note, I’d never heard of Nikki being a diminutive of Veronica or Dominique until now.

FF drags Nate away, and when Nate tries to gently get out of having sex with her, she locks him in a supply closet.

Meanwhile, people other than Eliot have broken into BGotW’s building.

At the school, Parker lets Nate out, and spilling her drink on Sophie’s dress, FF extracts BGotW.

Hardison discovers FF is an assassin sent by the Iranians.

Over with Eliot, one of the men from the diner is among those breaking in, and Eliot fights.

In the locker room, Sophie saves BGotW from FF. Then, Nate and Parker save him again this time via Nate distracting her long enough for Parker to Taser her.

Except, when Parker drags FF away, BGotW holds the gun on Nate. Sophie appears, and they tell him they’re here on behalf of CotW. He changes a password, and this was a mistake. Now, Eliot has destroyed his 1984 thing.

It’s revealed this was done by neurolinguistic programming, and since this is fiction, I’ll go with it.

He runs away with the gun, and the real FBI, though not McSweeten, arrive.

There’s a scene of CotW tearfully but happily talking to his family via video-chat.

At the school, Nate and Sophie are announced King and Queen, and they dance.

Out of sight, Spider-Parker and Hardison do, too.

During this, Eliot is not happy no one is curious if he made it out, and he re-punches an employee as he leaves.

Fin.


End file.
